Notebooks & Netbooks

[JoeS]

After setting up my first Acer Aspire R7-572 the Wi-Fi mysteriously stopped working. When watching web-based videos they would continually start and stop which seemed to indicate some sort of buffering problem. The problem did not seem to be related to my network speed since the tool at Speedtest.net reported my usual speed (6 Mbps download, 1 Mbps upload). After reviewing what I had done just before the problem occurred I was able to determine that activating my Bluetooth headphone was the root cause. I then downloaded and installed the most recent Broadcom driver for Windows 8.1 from the Acer website – Broadcom Wireless LAN Driver 6.30.223.170 – but that did not fix the problem. The first Acer Level 1 support person that I spoke to suggested that I factory reset my R7. After the factory reset did not solve the problem the second Level 1 support person said that the machine should be returned to Acer for repair. Instead, I returned the computer to the online store where I bought it and since they did not have another R7 in stock I reordered the same computer from another online store.

Now for the bad news. The second R7 computer had the exact problem as the first. When I phoned Level 1 support about it the support person stated that Broadcom said to tell their customers to TURN OFF Bluetooth when using Wi-Fi. The reason given was that the R7 has only one antenna that must be shared between the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi functions and that there is not enough bandwidth to support both. As reported by Acer Level 2 support, there is currently no solution as to how or when the problem might be fixed so until they do the remedies available as I see it are:

1)      Return the R7 and buy a different computer without this flaw

2)      Turn off Bluetooth and only use wired devices when using Wi-Fi

3)      Buy a USB LAN adapter to use with Bluetooth

4)      Buy a USB Bluetooth adapter

5)      If having simultaneous Bluetooth and Wi-Fi functionality is not important then do nothing

As for me, since I use this machine mainly for media consumption and entertainment I need simultaneous Bluetooth and Wi-Fi functionality and so I will be using option 2 in the short term and hopefully option 4 in the longer run.

It is unfortunate that Acer delivered a computer with this flaw since otherwise it is almost the perfect computer for my needs.

[Acer-Ryan]

I apologize you are experiencing this problem. The use of a Bluetooth device or having it enabled should not be impacting your WiFi performance. In this case I would recommend you contacting technical support in your region and request service as it sounds like you may have a mechanical/electrical problem with 1 of the 2 antennas on your WLAN/BT card.

[qcislander]

In my case, bluetooth simply does't work.  The only indictation I have that this R7-572 machine includes bluetooth at all is a Device Manager not that there's a "Bluetooth Module", and the driver is Broadcom's.   That's it.   Windows offers me nothing to *use* this thing.   How am I supposed to connect my phone, my bluetooth mouseand keyboard, my external speakers... a couple of thousand dollars woth of "instant connect" bluetooth devices to the $1500 computer I just bought this morning???

I've been using computers of every description for more than 40 years, and I've *never* encountered a machine tha's this useless right out of the box.

How do I make bluetooth work on this machine?

[qcislander]

I apologize.   I had to explicitly turn the bluetooth thing on (and does that make my machine permanently discoverable?  If I stop discovery, all bluetooth service quits!).   Never was needed before, but Windows 8 apparently demands that.